BBC News School Report @ LCS

People tell you to eat your five-a-day. It could save your life to eat ten fruit or vegetables a day. 7.8million people’s lives have been saved from eating ten pieces of fruit or vegetables a day. This isn’t just in England it is also worldwide. Adults usually struggle to eat three or four portions of vegetables and fruit a day. They might eat a tomato sandwich and an apple then a little amount of peas or vegetables at dinner time. Even if you can only manage a little bit it still helps. The way it helps is by decreasing the risk of heart disease. It can also reduce the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Also by doing this there is a reduction in the risk of premature death. Research shows that we should eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Instead of raiding the chocolate box or the biscuit tin you should raid the fruit bowl and pile your plate full of vegetables to prevent chronic disease or an early death.

An investigation took place and we found out that the amount of fruit and vegetables needed to stop diseases and premature death is ten pieces a day. If you have ten pieces a day you are reducing the risk of heart disease by 24% and lowering the risk of a stroke by 33%. To reduce the risk of cancer, the menu should include green vegetables, such as green beans; yellow and orange vegetables such as peppers and carrots. Researchers have found nothing between cooked vegetables and raw fruit and vegetables. This means both of them do the same amount of protection against diseases. Fruit and vegetables also reduce cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

We interviewed some of the dinner ladies in the canteen. The first question we asked was “How many vegetables do you serve a day?” Their answer was, “we serve 7 tins of baked beans on a Thursday and that is 180 portions of vegetables a day.

The next question we asked was “Do you think the meals are healthy?” The answer was “yes every day we serve healthy food. There is just one time when we don’t serve food that isn’t that healthy. That is on chip day, chip day only happens once a week though so we aren’t stopping the children eating healthy food.”

Another question we asked was “Would you introduce foods that are nicer to eat but aren’t really healthy?” they said “if my boss is happy to and the children wanted it a lot then I don’t see why we couldn’t introduce them.”

The final question that we asked was “Why is it important for students to eat healthy food in school?” they answered with. “It is important for children to eat healthy food because then they won’t get overweight and it helps their brains to work so they can get good marks in class.”

After talking to the dinner ladies we conducted a survey. We asked thirty-six people and we have found out that Littleover Community School isn’t very healthy. Most people we asked said they ate around three pieces a day. The next one was five pieces a day. The highest amount of fruit and vegetables people have eaten a day is seven. These people are healthier and there were four people out of everyone that ate seven pieces a day. Hopefully in the future we can do a survey and get more people eating above five pieces of fruit a day.

These results tell us everyone needs to be healthier and eat more fruit and vegetables. If we do this then less people will be overweight and not so many people will die from cancer , heart disease or premature deaths. We can also have a world that isn’t eating fast food and food that is bad for you every day.